General Question

Why hasn't Syria been freed yet like Libya? Where are things going in Syria?

The revolution in Syria has been undergoing for the past 11 months. Why didn’t the world countries, i.e. NATO, US, UK, France.. etc., help the Syrian people to remove their president, Bashar Assad, from power? In Libya, it only took them less than a week to make a decision to remove Qaddafi from power. Why is it taking so long in Syria? Where’s Syria heading to??

8 Answers

The leaders of Syria have the financial and military backing of Iran, so they are not as isolated as Gaddafi was. Also US/NATO has not yet decided to use its air power in Syria to destroy the government’s ability to wage war on its people.

Syria has a more powerful, more centralized military (much of the uprising in Libya was from turn-coat army officers). They have more money, more international backing, and as awful as their leaders clearly are, they don’t have the level of terrorist-related history that Ghaddafi had in Libya.

If things continue the way they are though, civil war is going to break out whether the rest of the world helps or not.

First, Hi @FunSteve, and welcome to Fluther. Great question, and I appreciate that you want detailed discussion in the answers.

Syria is a far tougher problem than Libya was. In Libya, you had a united opposition against a dictator who was a pariah around the world due to his terrorist activities and seeming insanity. The entire Arab League was united against him and requested NATO to intervene and prevent a genocide. The UN voted to authorize military action to prevent genocide.

In Syria, the opposition has yet to coalesce into one cohesive voice. It’s this and that faction independently fighting Assad. As odious a dictator as Assad has been, he never blew up commercial airliners flying over Europe or any such fool things as that. He has the support of Shiia Iran and Hezbollah, and the Shiia majority in Iraq would oppose any Western intervention.

Sadly, it’s going to take even more carnage to change that, or the civil war will just have to play out to its bloody end. Assad is a member of a tiny faction of the Syrian population and is opposed by nearly the entire populace. Bit by bit, the army is abandoning him and turning their weapons on his forces. He’s doomed, but it looks as if he is determined to die fighting for everlasting power. Power must be an incredibly seductive mistress, because so many dictators do die fighting to keep it when they could cut a deal to live peacefully and in luxury in exile.

As bad and repressive as Syria is, the country is nowhere near the failed-state cult that Libya was.

One of the reasons I was skeptical about intervening in Libya was that I was worried that people would be expecting us to intervene in all these other countries for “consistency.” But I’m sympathetic to the argument that Libya was actually a special case, that a much greater number of lives were at (immediate, at least) stake, and that it was regionally and politically more opportune and realistic to take out Qaddafi than these other dictators.

The situation is more complex than that of Libya as Assad has considerable support in the country. Much of this support comes from people who simply want stability, but even these people would prefer the regime to become more democratic and less repressive. It would be unwise for the West to become involved as to be seen to be taking sides could make things worse.

Because the opposition didn’t petition at to UN to get a no-fly zone or any other form of military support. The West could still pursue such a course trying to get UN support. At this time many leaders wonder whether the Arab League can deal with it on their own. So far their approach is a complete failure. But if the Arab nations can handle it themselves that’s always better than sending NATO fighter jets.